Tony Robbins - Take Risks To Create Breakthroughs In Life (Tony Robbins Motivation)

Welcome back again. It's Tony Robbins. I'm very excited about the session because one of the biggest challenges for people's, everybody wants a better quality of life. Everybody wants life to be greater. But almost all of us get stuck at times, or something stops us, something prevents us from doing something that we really are capable of doing. Whether it's turning around our body, or shifting a relationship, or turning around our finances, or just maybe just being happy and fulfilled at a different level. We get stuck with a belief of how we're not supposed to be, what we're not supposed to do, what people won't accept, what we're not capable of. Or maybe we get stuck in an emotional pattern, just being pissed off, or frustrated, or worried, or sad, or overwhelmed. Sometimes we get stuck, you know, not so much in anything, but just some habits of doing things a certain way.

And what a breakthrough simply is, is that moment in time where there's an opening. And the opening can come from a conversation. It can come from meeting somebody that inspires you. It can come from an insight. It can come from watching a movie and being moved emotionally. Just that right moment. It usually comes because something kind of clicked inside of us, something snapped us and made us look at life through a different filter, in a different way. And you know, it's a real breakthrough because you take that little insight, that little distinction, that little moment, or maybe that little or big emotion inside of you that says, "No more. I'm gonna change this." And suddenly you do something to make your life better. You break out of the impossibility of life has to be this way, or life is controlling me, and you start to take back control of your life. You start to make the shift that creates the quality of life that you really deserve.

Everybody experiences extreme stress at some point in their life. I don't care who we are. Something happens outside our control, and it keeps our life, and it knocks us on our tail. It might be a health stress. It could be something with your family. It could be economic, career. They could be something emotional that happens, biochemical. There's so many things. It could be an environmental situation that had nothing to do with you. Every one of us, in our lifetime, are experiencing extreme stress. And these days, because of the economy and the way we've responded to it, the majority of people are experiencing some form of extreme stress, at least according to polls. Stress doesn't come from the facts. Stress comes from the meaning that we give the facts. Yes, those things have happened. But the real question is, if we fight what's happened, we've got a problem. We're gonna decide what are we gonna do with what's happened in our life? How are we gonna take this? How we get a mole this? How we're gonna turn our life around? Because when you come up with a new meaning, get a new life.

So what are we gonna do in this session? Well, in this session, we're gonna take a look at something from a different perspective. We're gonna ask you this question: What is the single force that controls the quality of your life? If there is one gift our Creator has given us, or the universe, whatever you believe, what is it? What is the one power that you have right now, in this moment, that can change everything? You haven't? I haven't? We all have this one singular individual power that can change anything in our life, regardless of what's happened to us. But I know you know the answer. The answer is the power of choice. The one thing we have in this world is, we can't control the events, but we can choose what to focus on. We can choose what things mean, and we can choose what to do. Those three choices, those three decisions, really control our life. It's not so much the conditions of our life that control our destiny as much as the decisions of our life.

Try for a second to think about something. Think about your life and just think about, are there a few decisions? If I were to ask you two decisions you've made your life, you know, that if you would have made a different decision, you would have a totally different life. I mean, it may be a life may have been dead, or may have been worse, I don't know, but you would have different life. I'm not asking you to, to by the fact that you should have known the answers. I'm just want you to see the power of a decision. How is your life better today because of the decision you made years ago? Not just negative ones. Think about it. Sometimes a little decision changes your whole life. Like you decide one day to go to a certain school, and you go to that school to go eat someplace, and you bump into the person that becomes the love of your life. Or you meet someone and you decide, as a result of that, that you're gonna become a photographer, or a software engineer, or a businessperson, or a doctor, or a dentist. Whatever they impacted you. But you made the decision. That's what I really want. That's what that's what my life's gonna be about. And that decision has affected so much of your life. What you do, how you live your life, how you spend your time, what you earn or don't earn. You know, who you attract into your life. Beliefs you have, all come from some of these little decisions. What you decide to eat from your dinner plate each night certainly determines your physical decimator, right? We all know that, at least to a certain extent. I know there's certain amount that's genetics. But I'm talking about the stuff you and I can control. So decisions equal destiny. It's not our conditions, it's our decisions.

So if we want a new life, if we want a new experience, we've got to make new choices. If you don't like the way your career is, or your business, change it. If you don't like your body, change it. You don't like your relationship, change you first. Because if you change it, you'll bring you to the next one. Maybe it's time to change it too. But change yourself first. If you want to change any of your life, you have the choice. So there is no right or wrong. I just want to make you aware in this breakthrough session that everything in our life changes the moment we make a decision. I need a real decision. The decision is when you cut off any other possibility. You commit to something with everything you've got, and you take action.

But the big decisions, focus on. Because whatever you focus on, you're gonna feel. If you focus on all the things that had been done to you in your life, of course you're gonna feel like hell. If you focus on all the amazing coincidences that have happened, things that maybe they were guided, maybe thought, but things happen. And because of that, you met this person that's your best friend, your husband, your wife. But because of that, you have this ability. Or because you were there that day, God missed an accident. I don't know what it is. But what have you focus on, you're gonna feel. If you focus on people don't care, and you'll look for reasons why they don't care, and evidence they don't care, you'll find it everywhere. If you look for evidence that people are really good people inside, that at some level we all care about each other, you'll find it. Seek and you shall find.

Secret is, have you become conscious about your decision-making? Because this breakthrough session is really, you want to change your life, make new choices. New life comes from new choices. But you have make conscious choices. The people in this particular television special, Melissa and her husband, they really found themselves in a place where they were both making decisions, most of them, that were unconscious. When you make decisions about what to focus on, and what things mean, what to do, in your unconscious, you get pretty terrible results, usually. Now, we've all done this. I do it still. We all do. But if you want to change your results, you got to become more conscious in your decision-making.

So think about what you focus on. You will feel, whether it's true or not. You focus on our people don't care, you're gonna feel they don't care. The second decision you make is, what do things mean? So if you focus on something someone does, and you come up with the meaning, and the meaning is, "No one loves me." The meaning is, "They're trying to take advantage of me." Depending on what meaning you come up with, and you get to choose the meaning of anything. For some people, they say, "This situation happened with the economy, and what that means is I'm going broke." Somebody else said, "The situation that were the economy, guess what that means? I'm gonna work harder. I'm gonna be more creative. It changed everything. Everybody else is gonna quit, so we're gonna dominate the marketplace." They'll be able to do it. Is this the end? Right now? Or is it the beginning? See, whether it's the end or beginning is your choice. You get to decide. Because once you make up a meaning, it's true. If you think this is the end of a relationship, are you gonna treat people the same way as if you think it's at the beginning of a relationship? No way. In fact, I tell people, if you want to have a great relationship, think about this: treat people like you did in the beginning of the relationship. There will be an end in the beginning of the relationship. When somebody says to you, "Would you take up the trash?" What do you say? "Of course, take up the trash. Do anything." But after about six months or six years, you can take them out the trash. Go, "What do you mean? Why? I look like your janitor. Take out your own trash." The meaning we give things is very different. Than some we feel different. Than our life is different. In the beginning, you'll do anything for someone. Now, you make up a new meaning. Why should I have to do that for them? Little choices like what to believe about yourself, what to believe about other people, whether this is the end or the beginning, start to affect your whole life.

And the third decision we make, we decide with the focus on. Most of us unconsciously, we decide what things mean. And the third thing we decide is, what are we gonna do? We decide to quit because it's overwhelming. We decide to get strong and focused. The sides are gonna turn it around. Decide to wait and see. Ultimately, your destiny is determined by what you do. So, for example, what do you do if somebody comes to you one day and says, "You have a tumor?" Again, I have that experience. I use that as a reference point because a lot of intense experiences, that was one of the more intense ones, for sure. You know, first, what do you focus on? You focus on it's over? Do you focus on why me? To give it a meaning that says, "I'm gonna die." What do you do? Just go through the traditional therapeutic approach? You put yourself in the hands of someone else? Do you evaluate this? You get a second or third opinion? Your destiny is determined by your decisions.

Now, if you're a guy like Lance Armstrong, you focus immediately on, "I gotta find a solution." The meaning you come up with is, "This is the ultimate battle." Well, you say to do is, you're gonna exhaust every possibility. Now, that doesn't guarantee you're gonna succeed. But it's interesting when you have that kind of a mindset, it shifts you. And Lance Armstrong, I mean, he was told things like, "Look, you got tumors here and your brain, you got a mini lungs, right? You got obviously in testicles, and you ride a bike for a living." That's pretty tough. But he made it to all of those pieces. Now, am I saying because he made the right choices? I can't tell you that. There's certainly some grace and everything. I think in life, there's three things. There's our ability to choose what we're focused on, to commit to get a result, to put all our intention and focus into something. There's our ability to do the right things, to have the right strategy, to execute. And then there's some grace. There's what some people call luck, some people call grace. There's if you do the right things over and over again, and with total focus, sometimes, you know, you get good fortune that comes your way. And you tend to have more good fortune when you're totally focused and decisive and you take lots of action, than if you kind of just sit around and accept things like, like you don't have a future.

But the point of the matter is this guy turning around. What was he like after he got through this problem? After he had his breakthrough? After he faced cancer? Race it against some other guy? Seemed like nothing by comparison. You're not much of a competitor. I face death. And he goes on to win Tour de France, up to the press, after Tour de France, breaking every record in we could ever imagine. What do you do? Decades ago, half a century ago, almost now, and someone says to you, "Go to the back of the bus." And you're African-American. One woman just decided, you know what? You can't take my dignity from me. I can only give that up, and I don't choose to give it up. And I will not go back to the bus. The answer is no. Rosa Parks changed an entire society. Because that day, she chose to focus on something else. She gave it a different meaning. "This is not a command. You do not have control over me." And she decided to fight, and she changed the direction of a country, and of many other countries. She started something. We forget. But you don't have to be famous to have the ability to change at least your own personal history, to change the direction we go in our life. We have the power to choose. Even if you have it before, you can finally say, "No more. I will put up with that within myself, or from anybody else." And here's what I'm gonna do differently. That's where the breakthroughs really start to happen.

Now, the question is, why do some people stand their ground and make something change, versus other people just kind of accept things? Why do some people make bold decisions, and other people make decisions that are based on trying to hang on to what they've got? That's a more complex question to answer than we might have in a few minutes in this one session. But it is one that I've spent my life studying. Because when you can change your decisions, you can change your life. Then you can change the force that controls your decisions. You can change anything in your life. At some level, we have certain beliefs and values. But if I was gonna make it simple, I'd say there's two things that determine your choices. The first thing is the state of mind and emotion here and at that moment. Think about it. Have you ever snapped at somebody you had nothing to do with them? It was just the state you're in, right? You're frustrated, you're pissed off about something, and in that state of mind, whatever they said got interpreted through that state, and you made of a meaning like, "They're an irritant," or "They're interrupting you." They weren't probably feel bad afterwards. When we get in the wrong state, we make the wrong decisions. When you get in a strong, empowering state, you'll make a better decision. Learning how to direct your state is a big part of what my work is with people, and it's a big part of what I do on my seminars.

But the other thing that affects your decisions would be what I would call your story, or your blueprint. We all have kind of a story about how our life is supposed to be, because of a set of life experiences, interpretations. Some people think life is all about getting theirs. Some people think life is about growing and contributing. Some people think life is about making judgments. Some people think life is about saving other people's lives. Some people think life is about being sick. Some people think God is the basis of everything, and the way to know God is to go through life in a very specific way with a set of rules, and they follow it, and that's what they believe. Whatever your story is, whatever your blueprint, your blueprint is just another way of saying, whenever you believe is how your life is supposed to be. At some level, we either follow that blueprint or we fight it. If we follow it or we fight it, we're gonna find that we're gonna bump into things in life where life isn't always the same as we expect it to be, or I think it should be. And that's what we start to experience stress.

So in this session, a breakthrough, when you watch this story and you saw Melissa, you saw the conflict between what she desired most and what you feared most. I really believe life is the dance between what you desire most and fear most. That's where you find where we live our life. The dance between what you want most and what you fear most. That's that's where all that energy is in life. So what does she want? She wants to be famous. She wants to be able to sing and have everyone hear her voice and be able to touch everyone. She wants to contribute. She wants to share a gift. And she definitely wants to be famous and successful. She needs to be closer to her children. And one of the big challenges in life is oftentimes what we want and what we need are two different things. She has five boys. They're all extremely young, as I'm sure you saw. And she has a husband. And while they're all supportive, or going on this journey, somewhere along the line, she lost that connection to what was most important. Now, she a bad person to make bad decisions? No. Good people make bad decisions when they get in lousy states, what our ego gets involved, or when we start believing our story. And here was the story she had: "Being a mom is important, but the bigger gift God gave me is my singing voice." Now, once we get seduced into a particular story, and we start to believe it, it takes ahold of our life, and it controls all of our choices. And then pretty sound bad choice on top of bad choice, um, time for bad choice starts to affect our life. Can you write how many times you've made some choices that you wish like Halle would have made a different decision back then? And or that no one ever knows the stupid decisions you made? I know I can relate to that.

So what I want to talk to you about today for this brief little session is how to break to a crises happen. Whatever type of crises you go through in your life, and I know you've had many, when we make some choices unconsciously, and we get consequences, and we make them unconsciously because we're trying to get what we want, we don't really know what we value most, we don't know what we need, and we find ourselves waking up one day and going, "Why is my life this way?" It's kind of like life is always calling to us to constantly grow and improve. You know, if you're going to look at what it's gonna make life work, but it's really simple. What makes people happy is progress. We're happy, we're progressing. If you're overweight, but you leave today, you know what this today for me more than thing else is? I've been stuck waiting for some magical diets and magical exercise, find some magical time in the future. And they have more time. There is more than one more time. I don't need a we plate for that. I'm just gonna make a decision today to get started. I don't need to go out there and let go interview 20 trainers and get online. I don't need somebody give me a perfect plan. I need to pick up my shoes and start walking. And you just get somebody behind me who just goes, "Wrong." I don't need a way for perfection. I'm gonna do something right now. I choose to get fit. I choose to walk. I choose to run. I choose to go join a club. I'm doing it now.

A breakthrough happens at the moment you make a new choice. And you don't have to wait. You can just get yourself in a new state. Maybe this tape will get you doing, or you just have to have a new thought that says, "You know what? I made choices in the past. I'm overweight because I chose to eat this and this. I'm not going to eat it anymore. I'm changing now." You can change your whole life real fast with just a few choices. But if you don't make the right choices, eventually you're gonna face a crisis. Crisis is when you made so many poor choices that sooner wider life shows up. And instead of asking gently for you to change and improve, to grow, to make progress, to be happy, life, when it's a crisis, now demands change. It isn't asking anymore. We borrowed money as a society, and we overspent, and we talked about changing, and we knew we had to change. And our crisis happens. And guess what? Nobody has a choice. The game has changed. And what crisis does is it melts us down. It melts us down so that we can recast our life. We can we mold ourselves. And usually, on the other side, our life is greater. Because as we go through that crisis, we have to grow. Nobody. Everybody wants changed. Nobody wants to do it. Everybody, I should say, wants progress, but nobody wants to change. Everybody wants their life better, but nobody wants to do the push-ups, the running, have the economic or emotional discipline to make it happen. But if you're watching this right now, and you're still with me, some part of you wants more. And I'm saying to you, choose it.

And the way you're gonna choose it is really simple. If you're in that crisis, what keeps you in the crisis is probably because you're being reinforced. Most people, they overeat, or they smoke, or they drink, or they yell at people. They keep doing it because they're rewarded. Whatever gets rewarded gets reinforced. Whatever habit or behaviors reinforced becomes a habit. And then pretty soon, do it long enough, it becomes part of your personality. And pretty soon, you think it's who you are. And you just keep living that way. I mean, it's easy to see this in other people, right? It's easy to see how messed up they are, and how easy they could, if they just make some new choices. All you gotta do is turn on the television, some news programs, some entertainment program, and you'll hear detailed descriptions about some person who is very powerful celebrity who is doing some stupid thing. Why do we see all this stuff on television? Why do we hear about every person you can imagine, from Lindsay Lohan to Britney Spears, to all the way back to the old days, it was Elvis, or Michael Jackson, or whoever it is that's in the news today. And this stage of life in your countries, you're watching this, it's because we want to see other people who make bad decisions so we can feel better about our own.

But the reason those people don't change. Lindsay Lohan, she's got another DUI. She's putting herself at risk. She's putting other people, or she could kill someone. She goes to jail. Supposed to be 90 days, but here's the consequence. It goes to two weeks. And before she even gets out of the jail, she makes a deal for an interview and gets paid a million dollars for the interview. What do you think the chances of her changing? When her bad behavior gets her a million dollars? And I don't know if she even makes that for that much time of acting at this stage. What do you think the chances are when people around her say, "It's not your fault. It's not fair. They treat you unfairly." As long as we have the decision that we're not responsible, it's not our fault, can't change anything. We have no power. So I don't know, find time you watch this, if Lindsey will change. But if she did, it'll because the enablers are gone, she's taking responsibility, and she's found something she values more than attention and money for bad behavior.

Now, it's easy to look at that with her. But what about you and I? Where are you and I addicted to our problems? Where are you and I reinforced? So many people would have a big problem. Listen, if things are going well, you say, "It's going so great." Your friends go, "Well, that's great." After a while, they go, "Well, easy for you." But if you got a problem, people go, "Hey, I understand." And they connect with you. Where do we get addicted to our problems? If you want to make a new choice, if you want to make a new decision today, if you want to have a breakthrough in some area life, you have to give up the story that it's not your fault. And you got to give up the attention and the love and the connection and the commiserating that comes with it with other human beings.

Here's how you change. Five simple, quick steps. And then I'm gonna give you a little tool. But if you want to, you can go online and really make a change with. If you're gonna change your life, step one: I don't care if something has happened to you. You know, somebody's spilled oil all over where you fish. It's horrific. It's disgusting how they dealt with it. But it's happening. You got to deal with it. Something's happened. Someone your family has been injured. You've lost your job. I don't care what the problem is. If you're in a crisis, step number one: See it as it is. But don't see it worse than it is. Now, what do I mean by that? I don't mean beast and mr. miss positive thinking right now. If you spending time with me, you know I'm not about that. I'm not here to tell you, "Go to that garden and chant, there's no leads, there's no leads, there's no weeds." Doing affirmations not gonna change your life. You got to go see what the weeds are and pull them out. My point is simple. You've got to see what the problem is. But you can't make it so horrific that you just give up. Today, this is the first generation in almost a hundred years of Americans who now believe the majority of Americans now believe that the quality of life for themselves and their kids in the future is going to be worse than the past. They have, in other words, nothing to look forward to. 63% of the U.S. as of today. Wow. When you start thinking there is no future, you go into what we call learned how a place where you just kind of give up. And if you get done a place of giving up, then you have no power of your life. That's when people get depressed. That's when people do crazy stupid things. That's when people want to turn to drugs or alcohol, or sometimes suicide, or just total frustration and anger. And their life starts to do the opposite of breakthrough. It becomes completely stocking and pain or an ongoing suffering. If you're not gonna break out of that, we gotta see it as it is. We're not here to be positive thinking people. You got to see what's really going on. But if you're overweight, you can't say to yourself, "Well, I'm big-boned." That's not why you're overweight. You're overweight because you don't work out. You eat certain things. You eat Cheetos all day long watching TV. I don't know what did you do. But I know it's not just because you're big-boned. You don't want to make it so it's outside your control and you can't change it. So see it as it is, but don't see it worse than it is, so that you have no reason to try. Does that make sense? That's the first step.

Step two: Get to the real truth and deal with it. Don't just see it as it is and not worse than it is. Don't just like balance it. But now get to the truth. I mean, listen, if the truth is you've been trying to get a job for two years, and you truly have worked everyday in a particular industry, and the number of jobs in an industry, you shrunk down, and you really aren't getting that job, and you may have look at the truth. The truth is, you might have to retool. You might have to say, "Gosh, you know, the industry I'm in is gone." I mean, gross. Simply the simplistic example. But for years, vinyl records were around for 85 years. There was a gigantic industry. And things came and went during the vinyl record time. What happened? While there was number of those 8-track tapes. Are you ain't enough to remember those things? Maybe you know somebody remembers those things. These big boxes you push them in and out. Yeah, eight tracks came and went. Vinyl records were still here. And then cassette tapes came, right? And cassette tapes were smaller and more compact and more convenient and more seemingly indestructible. And they came over here. And vinyl records were still selling like crazy. If you had a job in vinyl records, you kept it. But then a little thing came along called the CD. And when that happened, almost overnight, you saw an entire industry been around almost a century was gone. If you were the guy that worked in the vinyl record factory and knew everything about it, it was the second generation. Didn't matter. It was over. And when now we laugh about a CD, right? Because everything in this digital world, you're gonna have instantly. Who wants to put on a CD? Pretty rare. Still available. In metal records, maybe there's a small market of people that are collectors. But it's gone. My point is, if you're in the bottle record business, you got to tell yourself the truth. You got to see it. It is not worse than it is. But you also got to get the truth and deal with it. You got to deal with a card you're dealt. You're gonna have to retool. You're gonna have to change something. You might have to move. If you live in the Gulf, and I don't support anything that's happening, who could it's unconscionable what's happening with BP. But if you live in the Gulf, and you're a third-generation fisherman, and you're now you fish for oysters, and they're dead, you better get to the truth. Are they gonna be dead for two years, or ten, or twenty? To the best of your ability. And you might say, "I can't do anything else. I can't. I'm a third generation. This is all I know." Yes, you can get to the truth and deal with it. Deal with the card you dealt with. You got to deal with it. Sure, I'm sure illegally. But in the meantime, you gotta take care of your family. I'm not saying this off the cuff easy, because I've been in those situations where it's impossible, it's unjust, it's wrong. But I still got to deal with it, just like you. And I make it sense. It's like you might say, "I have a lived here, Mom." You might have to move. You might have to fish someplace else. You might have to. I know you still got to deal with all the consequences. But you've got to take back control of your life. There are unjust things that happen. But you got to take control. Easy for me to say, I'm not sitting in your shoes. I get that. But who hasn't experienced some form of injustice someplace? Who's not dealt with something unfair? Who's not double something it wasn't meant to be unfair, but it affected your entire life, your career, your finances, whatever. You got to tell yourself the truth, and you got to get to those dealing with the reality right now. The longer you wait, the longer the crisis will be. If you're having an economic crisis, got to deal with it. Got a downsize, right size, do whatever it takes.

And I say, "Okay, Tony, well, so far you telling me don't allow myself to make it so bad I don't try. See it as is, but don't make it worse than this. And you're telling me, get to the truth and deal with it." Well, that's nice. But you know, how do I do that? Maybe the third step, more than just getting the role model. Maybe to be more specific, is get a vision first. Get a vision and get strong. That's why I think your third step should be. You first tell yourself the truth. Yes. See it as it is, not worse than it is. Tell yourself the truth and deal with it. But the way to deal with it is say, "What am I going to go for?" There's that'll be a compelling future. I got to come up with a vision for my life, or a vision for my relationship. I've had terrible relationships. Nothing's work. Tell yourself the truth. I've made poor choices, or I told me some stories and gave myself excuses, or I've not have the courage. Whatever it is. Get to the truth. And then get yourself a vision for what you do want. Because you have to have something you're gonna move towards. Does that make it sense? If without a vision, people perish. It says in a very good book called The Good Book. I know there are many good books, but that's a good one to take a look at. We need something to go for. We can deal with any problem today, as long as there's something that we can look for in the future that we can strive for. It'll give us the emotional and psychological fuel, the juice to keep moving forward. So you gotta come up with a vision.

And a way to do that, we'll call that step 4. Get a role model. You might get the vision from a role model. You might get the vision just from coming up with a new idea. But in order to figure out how to go from where you are to where you want to be, to close the gap from where you are to where you want to be, it's best to learn by other people's experience whenever you can. So get a role model. Get their strategy and go to work. Get into action. So I'll give you an example. Years ago, when I was first starting to try to figure out how to build myself financially, I grew up at a time when just as I was starting to do well, this big recession happened. But I remember, I was like 29, 30 years old, I think, and maybe 31. And I was doing okay. And then all of a sudden, there are all these business challenges because we went through this severe recession back in those days. And I remember the time, everybody was downsizing and freaking out. I thought, "You know what? I don't want to just settle for this. I want to find a way to do well." Who's done well in really tough times? That's why I started doing my homework. And those days, you know, you didn't go out and use the internet the way you do today. You couldn't access all that information. We actually went to libraries and did research in traditional ways. I'm ain't enough to remember those days. I started hearing about this man named Sir John Templeton. Very famous man. He's a man who became a multi-billionaire as an investor. He started with nothing. But that was interesting is when I started find out about his story. Because here's a guy that, when he's a young man, he's called Sir John Templeton. Now, he was actually an American originally, and he wasn't sir. He came from a very poor family. And he just decided that in his life, he wanted not only do well financially, he want to do so well he could help other people at any level that he wanted. And today, by the way, he's passed. But before he did, he created the Templeton Fund. And he also created a fund that now delivers money, gives money each year at the Templeton Prize to people that do good spiritual works. And it's larger than the Nobel Prize. And it continues to go on. But the guy started with nothing. And here's how he did it. Listen to me now. The reason I look from as a role model is because he made all his money and the worst of times. He made all his money when people were going through the equivalent of the deepest recession or depression possible. His whole belief was, and this is different than almost anybody else you see around me, was pessimism was the secret to success. That what he wanted to do was make money when people are most pessimistic. Because when people are optimistic, they want you to pay for their house a huge sum of money. But as they start getting more and more pessimistic, or pretty soon they think they can never the house is the worst thing to have. They'll virtually give you the house. Will virtually give you the business. And so he made those money starting in World War II. When the war broke out, when Hitler invaded over in Europe, he took all the money had and borrowed total money of ten thousand dollars. A total amount he bought with ten thousand dollars every stock on the New York Stock Exchange that was one dollar or less that he thought might be useful, including some companies that look like they're gonna be bankrupt. But he did it when people were the most pessimistic. Because if you're call it, look like Hitler was gonna take over, it didn't look like we were all gonna be the winners. It looked like Hitler was gonna dominate. And when people have that scared, they would give up anything they had just to get a little bit back. And so he bought all the stock that eventually made him a multi-billionaire. It became a billionaire because after things changed, after the war, just five years later, an economy started surged. Every change for him. Where do you think he invested next? After World War II, where was a country that was pummeled, that was down? The factories were basically turned into mud. Japan. You could buy things for pennies in Japan that would have cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars before. And he did when everyone is most pessimistic. He went in, did well. And then he sold when the 80s surged, and when everybody thought Japan was the greatest country on Earth, had the biggest businesses, he sold him. It's maximum profit when people were overly optimistic. He did the same thing down in South America when inflation went crazy. This man spent his entire life basically having a strategy and how to succeed when everybody else was scared. I tell you that because he's a role model. What he did, how he did it, it's all in writing. It's crystal clear. You could do the same. But you won't be able to do it when you're telling yourself the sky is falling and it's over. When you see it worse than it is, you'll just give up. You won't do it. If you don't tell yourself the truth is, you know what? This system isn't working. I got to do something. I gotta change my finances. I got to change my job. I got to reach. If you don't tell yourself the truth and deal with the truth, nothing's gonna happen. You won't ever even think about a guy like John Templeton. If you don't have a vision that says, "I don't care how the environment is, I'm gonna find a way to do well." And you won't do well unless you get a strategy based on a role model who's really done it. My whole thing is this: if anybody has something you want, they aren't lucky. They did something. If you model them, if you take similar steps, you can produce a similar result. Make sense?

And finally, the fifth step. Look, if you're in a situation where you see it as is, but not worse than it is. If you've told yourself the truth and you dump the cards you're dealt with and just decide you're gonna change it, and you're willing to do what's necessary. If you put yourself in a place where you got a new vision, and you gotten yourself strong. If you got a role model, and you've got some strategy, and you've got yourself in action. Step 5 is: Give much more than you expect to receive. Simple as that sounds. If you find a way to meet people's needs in business, in an intimate relationship, meeting your kids' needs, anybody's needs, the whole game changes. What happened here when all of a sudden, you know, Melissa finds herself coming home, home, and all of a sudden she finds out that while she's gone, her now don't want to talk to her boys, her husband has had an affair. Well, none of that could change if she would have just said, "You know what? My whole life is over. I'm done." And oh, by the way, I've just lost my career too, because while I'm busy trying to deal with my family, I didn't finish the record, so I lose my record deal. And oh, by the way, we don't have any financial stability. Now we're losing our house. If that family would have just said, "It's over." If Melissa or Rick, either, just said, "It's over." It would have been over. But they told themselves the truth. "We got severe problems here." But they didn't make it worse than it was. They didn't say, "We can't turn it around." And then they got to the truth. The truth of the infidelity. The truth of her addiction to going after fame instead of being a mom. The truth that neither one of them have been really competent at parents and have not given the energy to the kids that they deserved. The truth is, the truth will set you free, but first it'll piss you off. You know, the truth, it doesn't feel good. But not feeling good at some times, as will you get your drive to change things. They start looking around and said, "You don't have the skill to even manage your house, much less our finances. We got to do something different. We got to focus on our kids. We got to focus on turning things around. We got to turn our relationship around." But that wouldn't work to us. They got a vision of starting to see, you know, it could happen. And that's what I help them with. I help them get to the truth. I help them to stop little over exaggerating. I got them to a place where they got to see that this relationship could be back alive and passionate, and that these kids deserve both their parents, and that she really could be a great mom, and that maybe in the end, she could even still have her singing career and enjoy it too. That she didn't have to give it all up. And I'm really proud of her. She did it because she found a role model. She got a vision. But she got a full role model. And the man that she works with today is a man that's sold, I think now, five million or ten million records. And most people outside the country business don't know his name. He's her mentor now. He's made music with, you know, Willie Nelson, with just about anybody you can imagine in the business. And he's done it for all these years. But he's never left the central part of Texas because that's where his family is. And Melissa's had offers to go to Sony, Sony Red. She walked away because they said, "You gonna have to do these things without your family." She found out what was most important, and she made the decisions that may met her needs to be a great mom. When you fight life and go, "I should be a singer or not a mom," and you got five kids, you got a problem. When you fight life and say, "You know, the economy should be different," you're gonna be stressed. Deal with what is, with out exaggeration, with total honesty. Dealing with the cards. Coming up with a vision. Finding yourself a role model that shows your strategy. Work your tail off. Give, give, give. Keep changing your approach, and you can get where you want to go. Make sense?

Now, that might sound like a lot. So to get you started, here's what I'd like you did for this session. Start out, if you want, by taking a big crisis or problem you have and going through these steps. Ain't okay, what's really true? And let me exaggerate. Let me stop the exaggeration. Let me not make it worse thing. It's just, let's define what's true. Let's stop the story. Just here's what it is. We got this much financial challenge. We got this physical challenge. Whatever it is. And then go to step two. All right, let's find out the truth. Let's get the details. Let's to get the details and figure out what we're gonna do. Then here's where we're gonna go. This is where we're gonna eventually get to. It might take us longer to get where we want to go, but we're gonna get here. Who's done it that we can model? That we can follow the steps in? Who can coach us? And let's just work our tail off and change everyday. But to give you a quick jump, sometimes when you're

In the middle of crisis or a crises, multiple crises, lots of things going on simultaneously, it feels a bit overwhelming. So you might not know a role model. Might say, "Tony, I don't know who." Well, not hard in the internet these days to find role models. Or come to an event. I promise you, we can show you plenty of role models.

What I do for a living, but what you can do right away is you can model yourself. Think about it. Almost everyone alive has been through more than one tough, tough time of crisis or multi-crises where you're having a problem financially and with your family, and you're having a health problem all simultaneously. Those are the intense ones, right? But if you're standing still today, most of us have found a way to get through it. And if you don't, you know someone who went through a tough time. My grandmother, and aunts, and uncles, somebody.

The greatest way to make that change happen when you break out of it, you know, break through, you break out of a problem, you break out of the crisis, is to model yourself. So we have five questions. When you click on this link, and you can do it by video, so you can see yourself, and you can share it with other people, or you can type in the answer. I'll tell you in advance what they are. I'm done here. I want you to do it right away if you would.

First question is, what's been one of the toughest times in your life? What's been one of the toughest times of your life that you did get through? Maybe there's a financial situation. Maybe it was a career situation. Yeah, maybe it was an intimate relationship where you were crushed. You thought you could never make it through all the pain you went through there. You know, maybe it was a physical challenge, a health challenge. Maybe it was a lack of confidence or ability. I don't know what it was, but what was it? Just an incredibly tough time that you did make it through, and you're just gonna jot it down, or you can do it in the video and just tell us.

Because you're not only gonna get this answer, but we're gonna create a community of people who will be role models. People that have been through hell and back saying, "Here's where I was. Here's how I got through. Here's what shifted my life. Here's what you can do." And we're creating this community is our gift to you so that this isn't just a discussion. That's one way. We really, I want to do is start a conversation with you where we can help each other.

So the first question is, what's it? What's a crisis? What's a challenge? What's a tough situation you eventually made through, but it really was difficult for you?

Second question: You go back and you think about that situation. What pulled you through? What pulled you through that situation? What did you, what did you learn? What distinction did you get? A strategy? Or was it a belief? Or did you meet someone who helped you? Or was it just somehow you clicked into your faith and you kicked yourself into gear? What pulled you through those tough times? Was it a person? Was it a place? Was an idea? Was a distinction? Was a belief? What was it? Share it with us. Type it down or tell us from your heart what it really was.

Third question: Just real quick, it's just for contrast. The third question is, what was your life like before the crisis? Like, right before hell broke loose? Usually you say, "Oh, my life was so great." But when you go back and look at it, was it so great? Was it wonderful? Just out of curiosity. Right before all hell broke loose, the question is, what was your life like right before?

And then the fourth question: What you do? What did you do to go from where you were to where you are today? What did you do to get over that situation? What did you do to get through that situation? What did you do to turn it around? What action did you take? Who did you go learn from? What skill did you go get? What, what did you physically do? Kind of give us the description of what you did because we all want to know because you can provide us a pathway. You may have been through a crisis that someone else is going through right now, and they could learn from you because they can learn the shortcut.

And finally, the fifth question, maybe the most important one besides what pulled you through. And the fifth one is, how is your life actually better today because you went through this crisis? Whatever the crisis was, how are you stronger? Are you more compassionate because you felt that suffering? You don't want anybody else to feel it? Or are you more hopeful because you know you made it through that, so you can make it through other things? For our unit situation where you've got a skill today that you didn't have and wouldn't have had if it wasn't for that situation that made you have to grow? Or you just happier today because you have a contrast of what life could be like and so now you appreciate the simple moments? How will you better mentally, emotionally, physically, financially, or spiritually today because you went to the crisis? Even though you wouldn't want to go through it again, you know, anybody else to go through it. How did it actually serve you in the end?

I think if you answer these five questions, you want me to remember them. I said them to kind of trigger your thinking. All you do is type in the answer or you take the instructions and click on the video and go, "Okay, toughest time in my life." There's been so many, but I'd say when I went through this divorce, or I'd say when I was told I had this tumor. All right, stay. When they told me this company was gonna go bankrupt, or whatever it was.

Second question: What pulled me through? God, I don't know. I guess a combination of things. One was this belief that somehow everything in life happens for a reason and a purpose, and even though I hate this, something must be calling me to grow. Or I'll tell you what it was. It was a friend that sat me down and said, "Man, you're going through hell, but when you're in the middle of hell, when you're pushing through, I'll just keep pushing. Just keep going through it, man. I've been there." And he gave me this plan, or he gave me this strategy, or he told me, you know, this problem won't last forever. Trust me. I know it feels like it's the end of the world, but 10 years from now, you and I will be sitting here, and you'll be here with your children, and you'll be here with your wife, and we'll be talking about those tough days, and we'll actually smile, laugh about them. So proudly made it through it together. We might say, "What got me through it was prayer." Well, my faith in God. Or will company through it was just massive action. You know what pulled you through? And just tell us. We all want to hear. We all need to know. And there's lots of ways to get through hell, isn't there? There's lots of ways to get through a crisis. There's so many ways. That's what I want people to get.

So when you're done with us in the website, you will give him something because the community is not just a place to go get stuff, right? But you should give. And the more you know, authentic you can be and honest from your heart, the more other people will see and be touched. You know, what was it like before? Oh my God, I was on top of the mountain. And what did you do? Here's what I did. You know, I told myself the truth. I got this new education. I went started talking to people each day. Whatever you did.

How is your life better today? There's a phrase, you know, "Be humble or be humbled." Oh, I have a different level of humility because I know, you know, that good as I think I may be, that situation reminded me that life is not just about me, it's about we. Or gosh, because of that, I love my wife so much because we made it through that situation together. Or because of that, man, I'm so much stronger financially. I'm on top of things. I don't let anybody spend. Whatever it is. Tell us, honey. Life's better.

Okay, I don't know how long the session was. Again, there's no script here, baby. I just want to work with you heart to heart to say one thing. If you want to breakthrough, you have to make new decisions, new choices, create a new life. The only thing stopping you is some limiting belief, some belief about how life should be different, and you should be different. Deal with life the way it is. Tell yourself the absolute truth. Don't make it worse than it is. Tell yourself the truth. Deal with it. Get a vision. Get strong. Get a strategy. Get a role model with a strategy. And get into action. And then put your focus on taking action every day. Giving, giving, giving. Change your approach. You will get there.

Go to the power of crisis right now. Click in. Give us your message and the answers to five. And look at other people. You'll find people been through things you can't imagine. A woman talking about how one day she was home and a man came in and to try and save her children from being hurt. She had allowed her him rape her right in front of her kids. And when her father and her husband, rather, he came home, he was so upset, he left her. And then she developed cancer. I mean, you'll see some stories here that'll blow your mind. And today, she's the most happy, incredible woman. And she's helping other people who left cancer to get through it. She's healthy and strong. Her kids are strong. We need those kinds of role models.

So whether your story is little or big, there isn't a little bit. We all need a pathway of power. And this will be a gift to yourself because it will activate your resources. It'll be a gift to other people as well. So that's our session. The power of decision, the power of choice, how to face a crisis and turn around. And may not sound like rocket science. It's not. It's just called the truth. And the truth will set you free, as they say. So live strong and live a passion.

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